We first met at the Boletarian Palace. The crumbling parapets looked solemnly down when your phantom materialized from the ether. I hadn’t prepared for our encounter, and, to be honest, I was more surprised than intimidated. You ran, greatsword held aloft by two hands, straight at me as I fumbled with my controller. Our fight, if it could be so called, lasted only seconds before you slew my character and left him slumped and broken on the cold stone steps. Your phantom disappeared into the black, and I arose elsewhere to recover what was left. In those moments, I hated you and how you humiliated me, robbed me of my time and effort. But you taught me a valuable lesson. I would not be caught off guard again.

I’ve always found it disappointing that discussions of the Souls series more often highlight the games’ difficulty in favor of their brilliant multiplayer components. Seeing the ghosts of other players blink in and out of existence brought a much welcome sense of shared misery, a connection only deepened during moments of direct interaction. The world I explored was one of many, linked tenuously to other games. It was, at times, a boon when I could summon someone as a blue phantom to my realm to help me overcome a particularly difficult area or boss. But keeping such a connection open also meant that others, red phantoms, could cross over to take from me everything I fought so hard to earn. Therein lies an unexpected poetry to the connections we form with other players online, and in world where the transmigration of souls plays a significant thematic part, a former enemy could become a valued ally. Across digital planes, I could see you in every player that sought to kill me.

It was after I’d been summoned to another world to help someone kill a powerful demon that I met you a second time. Your name had changed, you fought with speed instead of strength, but I knew it was you. We dueled near the Altar of Storms, the sky and its enormous beasts mirroring our energetic dance in the arena below. This time, I had a stronger grasp of the mechanics. I kept just enough space between us to avoid your swings. I knew when to back off, when to pounce, when to heal, and for the first time, I beat you. I celebrated loudly but briefly (there’s little room for such indulgences in the game). But it was my first victory over another player, and I was more than glad it was you.

I never completed Demon’s Souls. The game wanted more time than I could devote to it, and every encounter in that game lacked the drama of our fight on those steps. I tired of the game rather quickly, and, to be honest, I almost forgot about you and our rivalry—until From Software announced a spiritual sequel in 2011’s Dark Souls. The game, set in the decaying world of Lordran, boasted a more intricate multiplayer suite with newly-added Covenants, factions of players devoted to different tasks in the world to either help or hinder fellow pilgrims.

According the game's lore, my character sought to fulfill some prophecy about saving Lordran from falling into miserable decay, but I had a different quest to pursue. I played to find you. I died frequently in the early stages of my journey, often at the hands of other players far more experienced than I. An unfortunate side effect of the game’s punishing design, invaders with impressive equipment could enter the worlds of players just starting out, and I regularly wound up skewered by someone armed with weapons and clad in armor I wouldn’t see until much later in the game.

Even worse was the fact that, after a defeat, the screen lingers on the defeated player's corpse just long enough for the victor to perform one of several scripted gestures, usually a crude, arrogant pose meant to antagonize or insult. Strangely enough, these gestures act as some of the only ways players can communicate, since talking via microphones is not allowed. A bizarre culture of manners formed where players, when summoned to provide assistance or to duel in specified arenas, make their avatars bow or show some similar sign of respect to one another before proceeding. I decided that if I ever found you, we would observe such formalities. You never struck me as one to boast, so I never did. I figured I owed you that much.

I traveled deeper in Dark Souls’ strange world, eventually joining the Forest Hunters, a covenant tasked with guarding a sacred grove that all players must eventually traverse. As a Hunter, I wanderedr the woods until I was summoned to defend the hallowed ground from trespassers, assured each time you would be the transgressor. Ultimately, my time spent praying you’d cross the forest proved in vain. Those interlopers I killed had none of your skill, and those who killed me had none of your tact and grace.

I left the forest to seek you elsewhere in the twilit land of Anor Londo. The long-abandoned city stood as a lasting reminder of the great lords who had left the world behind. Under the vaulted arches of an ancient cathedral, I found my progress halted as each time I called for aid from fellow players, invaders crossed into my realm to challenge me. I welcomed them, assuming you would be among their ranks, but you never showed.

I decided to take a more active approach to finding my rival. In Anor Londo I sought out the Blades of the Darkmoon, those who pledged to hunt the guilty, in hopes they could lead me to you. In my quest to join them, I unfortunately offended their leader by accident and incurred the wrath of his disciples. They hunted me as I hunted you, and I couldn’t help but smirk at the poetic symmetry of such an emergent turn of events.

I turned to darker methods to find you. I broke my code only to help other players and vowed to invade other players' worlds across Lordran. I killed a knight errant in the poisonous bog below Blighttown and left his corpse to sink in the mire. I slew a cleric inside the chapel in the Undead Burg at the foot of an altar built to honor some absent deity. Deep in the ruins of Lost Izalith, I hunted a sorcerer who proved my better and sent me back to my world with less than when I left it. Each opponent could have been you, but none felt right. Every life I took offered no vindication, and every failure lacked moralistic weight. I thought my search had come to a disappointing end.

Then, in the towering libraries of the Duke’s Archives, you came for me. I left my character resting at a bonfire on a balcony outside foolishly thinking that I couldn’t be invaded. Bonfires seemed to offer a small respite from the horrors of Lordran, so surely it would act as a makeshift pause function. I left my chair to check my laundry, to get the mail, to perform some other mundane task that would take no longer than five minutes, but, when I returned to the game, I found an unsettling and unfamiliar sight. My character was no longer sitting at the bonfire but standing, his health depleted but for the slightest sliver. My television screen bore a message to tell me what transpired: “Phantom has returned home.”

I didn’t recognize your name, but it had to be you. I’d killed countless invaders, and I’d been killed by even more. But none of them would have left someone like that, weakened to point of the death yet still alive. Why didn't you just kill me? Was it some sort of message? Did you carefully choose your attacks to leave just enough life simply to show that you could? Perhaps you assaulted my immobile avatar only to tire of his lack of response, and you left out of sheer boredom. Or did you, as I suspect, attempt my assassination but stop when you noticed I was not there to defend myself, finding no honor or reward in killing a static target? That’s what I’d like to believe, that you sought me out as ruthlessly as I hunted you and scoured the world for our eventual meeting. Maybe you wanted to shame me by leaving me alive, but I choose to think that mercy, not cruelty, stayed your hand.

I stopped looking for you after that. I devoted the rest of time in Dark Souls to completing the game. As I approached the final fight in the Kiln of the First Flame, I was invaded by another player one last time. I saw the blue phantom emerge across the remnants of the crumbling shrine, one of the Blades seeking vengeance for the death of their leader at my hands. We fought briefly but intensely, until a well-timed parry and riposte sent my foe flailing into a seemingly bottomless pit of ash. It was the last bit of interaction I had with another player in Dark Souls. I walked alone through the fog barricade to kill the game’s ultimate enemy, and I left the last vestiges of that world and the shared experiences it offered behind, all my trials and tribulations coalescing into pile of cinders.

I haven't returned to Dark Souls, and I don't intend to any time soon. I must confess, though, I wonder if you're still there, wandering around and invading worlds of hapless player. I sincerely hope you are. If not for you, my experience in the twisted lands of the Souls series would have lacked a palpable richness. You and I wove together a narrative of revenge and redemption, one of metempsychosis and self-reflection. Your specter haunted, inspired, and infuriated me, compelling me to my character's own apocalyptic end. All other games I play that seek to tell stories must now contend with the one we etched in digital blood and stone across multiple worlds.

So, as I begin my journey in Dark Souls II, finding my way across another damned place alongside damned souls, I look for you, eagerly awaiting that moment when we can continue our tale. Perhaps we'll meet as allies, or, more likely, once again locked in immortal combat. Either way, I'm searching for you. I wonder if you're looking for me, too.

Cheers,

--David

David is working on his PhD and currently writes for awesomeoutof10.com, where this article was originally published. Follow his hilarious acts of academic vigilantism on twitter and please feel free to ask questions and offer criticism!

A few years ago, a friend and I were discussing poetry when he defined a poem in the most succinct way possible. “A poem,” he told me, quite matter-of-factly, “is just the perfect words in the perfect order.” It’s a direct definition, but not a simple one. “Perfection” invites an incredible degree of practiced calculation and execution, keeping in mind rhythm, stanza and line length, timing, narrative, punctuation, negative space, and a host of other elements. Great poetry is a product of precision and calculation as much as it is emotion. The pursuit of perfection in verse is not an endeavor for the faint-hearted.

After I spoke to Sidekick Books’ editor Jon Stone about Coin Opera 2: Fulminare’s Revenge, a volume of computer game poems, I reflected on the idea of poetic perfection and how it could be configured to reflect the aesthetics of game design. Could the definition of a game be so distilled to the perfect algorithms in perfect sequence, or something similar? Coin Opera 2: Fulminare’s Revenge navigates such interpretive straits with an overall approach that falls somewhere between careful trepidation and reckless abandon. At times it is brilliantly insightful while at others its indulgence obscures its central prospect, as is often the case with collaborative efforts. The book is, nevertheless, an absolute treat and an ambitious work, and the poems contained therein as varied as the games that inspired them.

Edited by Jon Stone and Kristen Irving (both poets whose work features in the book), Coin Opera 2 begins with a forward by prominent video game journalist and comic book author Kieron Gillen. This brief primer is followed by a proper introduction, a manifesto of sorts by Jon Stone that outlines four major thematic links between poetry and video games: resistance, formal restriction, speed of change, and, of course, play. Stone’s introduction provides a solid foundation before proceeding to the books proper, but I found myself wanting more elaboration. Aside from “play,” Stone’s discussion of these formal commonalities moves too quickly, and, while I understand the impetus to get to the poems, the points raised in the introduction warrant more exposition.

The major draws, of course, are the poems themselves, and these are split into three “Stages,” each complete with a “Multiplayer” section and an “End of Level Boss” poem. This format gives the book an implied structure as reading the book from cover to cover reflects the linear progression of a game. But like most games, we can play it or play with it, and an anthology affords readers multiple avenues to engage with the poetry within. It’s a clever bit of bibliographic coding befitting of its subject, even if skipping to the boss fight may forfeit some experience points.

It would really be a shame to gloss over any extensive section, though, especially given the volume’s commitment to experimentation. The aforementioned “Multiplayer” poems differ in each stage, either representing competitive or co-operative play. The “Boss” poems are similarly unique in that they’re much longer and structurally different (a prose poem, a cento, and a series of vignettes) than the other poems in their respective stages.

The boss poems work quite well within this structure. Coin Opera 2 is not the only poetry book that emphasizes the importance of active reading, but positing a sense of accomplishment at “vanquishing” a large body of complicated text is a fun prospect. The multiplayer poems, however, are less elegantly implemented. Reading through each stage builds a momentum that halts when a multiplayer poem pops up and asks the reader to note a set of instructions before proceeding. Though the poems themselves present clever plays on interaction, especially the strategy game-based poems in the final stage, they would fit better into their own separate category rather than within the more “linear” stages of the book.

The multiplayer and boss poems are hardly the only examples of poetic experimentation, and here lies the true value of the book. In his introduction, Stone briefly highlights how poetry constantly tests the structural binds of the old guard by embracing the facets of new media and technologies—an Ezra Poundian “Make it new” dictum for the digital age. This tension between old and new manifests in fascinating ways. Ross Sutherland composes sonnets about Street Fighter characters. Matt Haigh writes a wonderful elegy about killing a giant in “The Thirteenth Colossus.” Chrissy Williams’ “Mirror, Okami Stardust” gives textual life to the beautiful images and exhilarating movement of Okami.

A handful of poems come with visual flare as well, a few along the lines of George Herbert’s concrete poems mixed with an almost Futurist type of anarchy. The lines of Chelsea Cargill’s “Manic Miner, 48 Kilobytes” form a textual drill. Cliff Hammet’s “Snake” moves like the titular cellphone game until it crashes wonderfully against the boundaries of the page. My favorite of these is Nathan Penlington’s “Tekken Love Poem” composed of DualShock controller inputs. It’s a visual joke, sure, but it’s also one of the clearest examples of what happens when video mechanics are used to inform poetry as more than metaphor. The talent on display bends, breaks, and celebrates those strange commonalities between poetic form and video game aesthetic, and, though the results are sometimes jarring, they’re always captivating. They move from light-hearted musings to anecdotal epiphanies, all the while toying with what the reader can expect not only what poetry is but also what poetry does.

In that same conversation I had with my friend about what makes a “good” poem, I compared good poetry to a glass of Scotch. A poem should be complex and elusive, something to be savored and appreciated rather than just consumed. Sometimes it takes a while to appreciate, and it can often knock you right on your ass if you’re not prepared for it. Coin Opera 2 contains all of these qualities, offering much more than just a few poems about video games. The book surprises and challenges and much as it delights and amuses, and, perhaps most importantly, it poses questions about what the intersection where poetry and game design meet can potentially offer if further explored in either medium.

Anyone interested in picking up this book or in computer game poetry at all? Let me know!

Cheers,

--David David is working on his PhD and currently writes for awesomeoutof10.com, where this article was originally published. Follow his hilarious acts of academic vigilantism on twitter and please feel free to ask questions and offer criticism!

It’s been awhile since I’ve walked with Bigby Wolf. “Faith,” the first episode of Telltale’s The Wolf Among Us, released in October, and in the interim I’d spent waiting for the next episode, “Smoke and Mirrors,” I hadn’t forgotten what transpired. What did slip my mind, however, was the oppressive bleakness of the twisted fairytale world. On that end, “Smoke and Mirrors” pulls no punches. It’s not necessarily an even chapter, nor does it advance the game’s story exponentially (at least not until the final moments), but it takes its time, offering a more complex look into and darkly-lit, fascinating setting.

As with most mysteries, discussing this episode necessitates a bit of exposition, which may or may not be detrimental to anyone wanting to play the game without any foreknowledge of its content. After the dramatic confrontation in the dive bar at the end of the first episode, Bigby finds himself embroiled in another murder mystery brought, literally, to his doorstep. In standard noir fashion, intrigue leads to disturbing questions found in dark places.

And by dark, I mean something other than just poor lighting. Bigby finds himself in a morgue-like dungeon, an all-business-welcome strip club, and a seedy hotel used for prostitution—in addition to some disappointingly recycled locales from the first episode that add little to the world’s richness. Each location bears at least some type of clever, profane twist on fairytale or nursery rhyme subject matter (I’ll never think of Georgie Porgie “puddin’ and pie” in quite the same carefree light), yet it all fits organically in a perfect mixture of folkoric curiosity and neon sleaze. Any sense of charm and wonder has been smeared with the grime of the city, and the deeper I followed Bigby into the woods, the more I liked where the path led.

Bigby’s journey, though, is much more cerebral than physical. “Smoke and Mirrors” forgoes the bombastic fights and forward momentum of the previous episode in favor of more patient, introspective moments. It makes sense, given that the first part already established who the character was, to further explore and complicate Bigby, and in this regard the episode refuses to hold back. It opens with an interrogation than can go as rough or as restrained as the player wants, a physical manifestation of Bigby’s internal struggle. Other encounters continue this trend as the violent action sequences of the first episode give way to more inward-looking moments that reveal just as much about Bigby’s character as they do about the two murders that have set the investigation in motion.

Though the action has lessened, the drama remains taught as ever as each conversation carries significant narrative weight, and it was nice to see some of the moments of “Faith” come to fruition. The strange exchange with Beauty and Beast, for instance, becomes quite significant in the climax of this episode (while seeming a bit forced). Walking around crime scenes and directing conversations feel just as intense as any of the more action-oriented moments I’ve played. Decisions yield unpredictable outcomes, and I suspect that some of the more rash decisions I’ve made will have far-reaching ramifications in later episodes.

I, nevertheless, find the experience still a bit stymied by some of the hindrances of the first episodes. Some of the denizens of Fabletown unfavorably reminisce about Bigby’s past that I hadn’t experienced, and, as a result, I felt more divorced from some of the more important facets of Bigby’s character. It’s harder to remediate a protagonist’s reputation than it is to build one from nothing, as is the case of The Walking Dead’s Lee Everett. The game insists on a redemption narrative without adequate context, but I find Bigby’s relationship with his past actions far less engrossing than his procedural detective methods. I still don’t get why I should care about Bigby beyond the scope of the investigation, though I’m more than willing to be convinced.

If I do have one slightly larger complaint about this episode, it lies in the fact that it has no discernible arc. “Faith” begins and ends with a murder, and a logical progression of events draw it to a satisfying close with a solid cliffhanger that ties the isolated incidents to a larger plot. “Smoke and Mirrors” simply progresses from one point to the next and ends almost arbitrarily without any sense of episodic closure other than a credit scroll and a view of what’s to come. Perhaps I can blame this lack of coherence on the legacy of the pulp fiction that influenced it, but the feeling that I’d accomplished little left me more empty than intrigued.

Despite these niggling concerns, “Smoke and Mirrors” is still pulp noir at its digital best and a more disturbing chapter than the one before, combining a gruesome narrative with inventive characters and a setting that’s as dingy as it is retro-cool. The glowing lights of Fabletown cast long, dark shadows, and I can’t wait to see what other secrets they conceal. Let’s just hope the next episode crawls out of the alleys soon. Four months between releases is far too long, and, as the people of Fabletown have come to know, I’m not a pleasant person when I start to lose patience.

In junior high, I used to smoke cigarettes after school on the practice field with a friend of mine. I liked them well enough, though smoking was never an everyday ritual, not for me at least. I didn't smoke to be like the cool kids, given that they wanted even less to do with me than I with them. I remember most the fun of sneaking around, of hiding something from my parents and teachers, discarding cigarette butts among those piles left by the school’s football coach so no one knew we were there. That rush felt better than the nicotine buzz. We never got caught.

I hadn’t thought about clandestine middle school smoke sessions until recently when I traded in my copy of Grand Theft Auto V. I couldn't help but recall how those moments sneaking behind the building coincided with the after-school activities of playing around in the first Grand Theft Auto, a top-down crime simulation that let me exorcise adolescent rage through digital carnage. I would take turns playing over at my friend's house, and the one without the controller kept one eye on the screen and one on the door, should an inquisitive parent step in and innocently ask what we were playing before we switched out the disc for Crash Bandicoot. We never got caught.

Like so many others, I looked forward to the GTA V release with shared expectation: a new world explore, revolutionary sandbox gameplay, and boundless opportunity to become a digital kingpin. Nevertheless, my excitement for the game felt a bit muted, and I didn’t know why. Even when I waited in line at midnight, I felt the need to rationalize my trip to mall with “Well, I’m up anyway.” It should have clued me in that something had changed.

The game, of course, bears little mentioning. Glowing reviews and thoughtful articles speak almost as loudly about its worth as the game itself. Grand Theft Auto V was everything I could have wanted from a GTA title in the best way possible, only it wasn’t a game I wanted to play. Those thrills of doing criminal, monstrous things all but evaporated as I never felt meaningful weight behind my transgressions like I had in the earlier titles. I didn’t hold on to the game too long.

I understood then that part of what made the first GTA game fun was linked to the fact that I was about twelve or thirteen when it came out, and with each criminal act, I felt that violent, ecstatic rush of early teenage rebellion crystallized in digital carnage. After I finished the main campaign of GTA V, I realized that I had not actually enjoyed a GTA game since Vice City, a game that coincided with my last years in high school -- appropriate considering how I longed to leave my hometown to build a new reputation elsewhere. To return to its sun-soaked strip would be an exercise in nostalgic futility.

It’s only natural to reflect on the context of the time we spend with games to better understand our relationships with them. Sometimes waning interest telegraphs in advance. I, for instance, lost interest in Call of Duty since the friends I originally played with had fallen out of touch long before the game found new life in Modern Warfare. Now, there’s nothing I want from the franchise, but I knew, even when I played it, that it wouldn't last.

Other times, however, disinterest sneaks up on you and you find out the games you had seen yourself in no longer reflect the person at the controls. Sometimes, a game can seem either far too familiar to hold your interest, or it can suddenly become alien in ways too uncomfortable to overcome. The last time I tried to play Twilight Princess, Hyrule felt more distant, like trying to reconnect with an old friend without anything to say. There was still plenty of depth and life to be appreciated, but I wasn't the one to do it anymore.

I suppose it’s hardly surprising that video games hold and lose players’ interests like any other media does. I don’t laugh at Tommy Boy anymore or buy into the ethos on display in Reality Bites and High Fidelity. I no longer sympathize with Holden Caulfield in Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye in the same way, lament the trials of the soldiers in Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried with pained fascination, or embrace Chuck Palahniuk’s Fight Club with the same anarchic fury I maintained crashing into puberty.

Still, the directness of interaction transforms a growing disinterest in a game into a different type of monster. Tiring of a writer's prose or a film's visual language is a largely passive experience that, while never pleasant, doesn't carry quite the same sting. Video games often ask us to be in their worlds, and when the player becomes less a denizen and more a tourist, a game can lose its appeal. About a month ago, I booted up Far Cry 3 to see if it still worked for me. I traded it within a day.

So I felt a bit guilty when I slid my copy GTA V across the GameStop counter. What had once seemed subversive and fun now felt routine and boring, and I struggled to find fault in either the game or myself to try and explain this disconnect. The answer was coldly simple: I'd just lost interest in what the game offered. I knew that there's nothing I want from GTA V anymore, nothing from maybe even the franchise. I'm just not the same person I was when I first took to those teenage streets, ready to bring them to their knees. As I stood there, wondering if the game failed me or I failed it, I decided it didn't really matter; the trade was inevitable. I took the credit and put it toward a copy of Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag. I have no regrets.

The melancholy yet hopeful truth about leaving games behind, about growing up is that changing tastes often lead to new discoveries. For every title I let gather dust until I trade it in, I take a chance on something new, often with enlightening results, such as discovering the charm of LEGO Marvel Super Heroes, the horror of Spec Ops: The Line, the mad brilliance of Saints Row IV. If I were honest about my collection, though, I could tell which games I'll keep and which are just waiting to be sold. Dust gathers quickly, after all. They'll do for now.

I've always considered the concept of "timelessness" a hollow one, a pleasant lie our parents tell us to keep us from embracing ephemerality too soon. Our relationships to games can often be just as fleeting, even if the games are still as brilliant as when we first engage with them. The years I've spent gaming can be measured not only by the games I've kept but also by those I let go, each containing some ghost of who I was at the time I played them. I don't think I'll revisit them any time soon, as there's not much there for me to back to.

I nevertheless find myself craving a cigarette every now and then as I leave some crowded to bar to get fresh air. Every drag I take, though, always comes as a disappointment. The taste of ash overpowers a muted chemical rush, and I inevitably wonder why I go back to something I no longer want. Funny enough, I habitually look over my shoulder with each drag, only now there's no threat of getting caught.

So what games, if any, have you left behind? Why or why not? How does it feel? Sound off, and let's reminisce.

Cheers,

--David

David is working on his PhD and currently writes for awesomeoutof10.com, where this article was originally published. Follow his hilarious acts of academic vigilantism on twitter and please feel free to ask questions and offer criticism!

“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single person in possession of a gaming PC must be in want of a game.” At least, that’s how I assume Jane Austen would see it, and so does Judy Tyrer, the lead designer behind Ever, Jane, a recently-funded MMORPG that drops the player into a virtual Regency England inspired by the works of Jane Austen. I recently had the opportunity to talk to Tyrer about her project and how, though at first glance it seems a passing fancy, the concept may be more than just a novel idea.

No stranger to the video game business, Tyrer has worked long enough to understand the hurdles of game development, working at both Ubisoft and Sony Online Entertainment. The recent success of her Kickstarter, however, (raising $109,563 of its proposed $100,000 due the generosity of 1,600 backers) has set her and her team, including lead artist Renee Nejo and PR/community manager and content expert Annabel Smyth, in motion to come at MMO market in a big—if rather unconventional—way.

“I love MMOs. It’s my favorite genre,” remarked Tyrer when I asked about her inspiration. “I played EverQuest with a group of people who would all role-play in the world. And the next day, we would write up these wonderful stories, share them with each other, then at night we would continue them in the game. It became an interactive fiction community.”

It’s precisely this type of community that Tyrer seeks to cultivate in Ever, Jane. Tyyer believes that the richness of interactive fiction has taken a back seat to the more raid-focused gameplay of current MMOs: “I wanted to create a niche market environment for the small community of people who like to role-play in the world and provide with the tools that facilitate the role-play. Interacting with other people gives you reason to create stories.”

For Tyrer, there’s no better source for social interaction than the fiction of Jane Austen. “Jane Austen is one of my comfort novelists,” she explained. “As I was reading, I kept thinking, ‘This would make a really good MMO. This would be a really good virtual world.’ I then imagined that we could PvP with gossip, we could do something with invites, and suddenly it all fell together all in one place like watching a Tetris puzzle just do its thing.”

Since Austen’s body of work provides great insight into England’s Regency period, a lot of the world-building is already done for her: “Instead of trying to create my own world and lore and everything that goes with it, which is very attractive and really like doing that, in this case I just started putting it together in an established world.” Even in this early stage, game’s art design is spot on, instantly recognizable as a digital period piece.

Of course, location can only bring part the Regency era to digital life. Ever, Jane’s builds an environment where raids and quests are replaced with grand social engagements like balls and dinner parties and PvP success is measured by the sharpness of wit rather than sharpness of blade, all of which is built around historical customs and rules. “As a game designer,” Tyrer said, “my job is to create rules, and the Regency period has done it for me. All I have to do is research what they are. This changed the creative nature of the game. The creativity is in adapting the world to a set of rules that you can program into a computer in a way that makes sense.”

For example, meeting someone in the street means that you have to choose between bowing, bowing deeply, or just giving a slight nod. Making the wrong choice could offend someone of higher station. Laws regarding marriage are also historically accurate. If you play as a woman, marriage can mean giving all your possessions and property to your character’s husband. Playing as a man or woman, then, presents the player with completely different experiences. These contemporary laws and social mores provide much of the fun and players learn how best to live in a world that keeps its denizens on a tight social leash. Tyrer offered an example of how gameplay fits into this unconventional model: “Imagine a dinner party where your goal is to deliver a bit of gossip to another player, but that player is trying to avoid talking to anyone at the party. It’s a fun game of cat and mouse where you have to still observe all of the customs of the time while trying to hunt someone who’s eluding you.”

Other MMO staples have been elegantly transformed in an Austenesque way. Tyrer explains, “We do levels differently in that characters aren’t immortal; part of your motivation is to secure a nest egg for your next generation. When your character dies, you. Families even function a bit like guilds, only it’s more driven by the player’s want to role-play rather than just teaming up and going on a raid.”

If the enthusiasm of the game’s backers is anything to go by, we can expect to see some impressive bits of interactive fiction on display. In fact, Tyrer and team are counting on it: “We’re implementing a quest system that caters to the players’ stories, so, based on a player’s choices and notes, we’ll put together a quest that fits in with their characters. I’m a techie at heart, so what’s the point of trying something new without breaking some new ground. We suffer from no shortage of ambition here,” Tyrer joked.

The game is available for a free demo download right now, and, though there’s admittedly not a lot to do in it, Tyrer and team have big plans for how they want to proceed. Tyrer remarked, “We’re even planning on having a trip to Dickensian London by way of H. G. Wells’ time machine. We’re trying for historical accuracy but we assert the right to change history when it’s not fun!”

For my part, I’m willing to give it a shot. I’ve no particular love for Austen or the Regency era (my interests lie about a hundred years later), but a game that purports to change the way we develop interactive fiction is something that has my attention. If others like me can swallow their pride and bury their prejudices against Austen’s art, we may find something to love in the coterie world of Ever, Jane.

Cheers,

--David

David is working on his PhD and currently writes for awesomeoutof10.com, where this article was originally published. Follow his hilarious acts of academic vigilantism on twitter and please feel free to ask questions and offer criticism!